Approving Grande Oaks annexation keeps control in town but isn’t 5B, Bluffton Council says
Residents flocked to Tuesday evening’s Bluffton town council meeting, some wearing anti-5B buttons to show their opposition to the county’s “zombie ordinance” also known as 5B.
According to the elected officials on the town’s dais, the residents who oppose Beaufort County’s 5B controversy may have showed up at the wrong meeting.
One thing was clear in the public comments: Confusion over the overlapping and unknowns of the multiple resolutions and annexation plans have generated questions and frustration among Bluffton residents.
Confusion over the difference between the Annexation of Grande Oaks vs. 5B
Council member Emily Burden sought to cut through the clutter and ask some pointed questions of one of the town’s officials.
“Does the annexation have anything to do with 5B?” she asked from the dais.
The answer came in one word, “No,” from Kevin Icard, the director of growth management.
Shortly after the Q&A between the council members and Icard, the town’s leaders unanimously approved, on final reading, the annexation of 65 acres of unincorporated county land into Bluffton town limits. It has been a year and a day since the application was initially submitted.
Tuesday night’s vote affirms the council’s position that local town control is urgently needed for this long-debated parcel. Skeptics worry that it may create a path for an influential developer to avoid county scrutiny in the creation of a heavily-traveled parkway gap-filling extension by using the lure of promised medical care facilities and housing stock.
Where is the land and why is it controversial?
The land consists of 27 upland acres and 38 wetland acres that, besides a cellular tower, are currently vacant. It is located at the southwest corner of the Buckwalter Pkwy. and Lake Point Drive intersection to the west of the Retreat at Grande Oaks.
Before the start of the meeting, Bluffton residents — several wearing buttons with a “5B” struck through with a red line — filed into town council chambers in opposition of a county road project that has been debated for nearly two decades. But during the meeting, council members made one thing clear: the decision tonight had nothing to do with 5B, they said.
Paul Coe, a Rose Hill community member, said during public comment that the Grande Oaks annexation will help to ensure the eventual building of 5B. He spoke on behalf of his wife, Joy.
“The public, as usual, gets shafted,” Coe said, “And has to deal with increased traffic, decreased property values, loss of the natural beauty of the area, compromised wetlands, increased flooding, increased noise pollution, and so on.”
Before the council vote there was a Q&A session where line of inquiry was posed by council member Burden. In addition to her first question about the overlap of Grande Oaks and 5B, she continued:
“Does the annexation push 5B through?” she asked
“No,” Icard said again.
Icard also confirmed that any proposal must come back to the town’s planning commission and the full town council once the developer has completed their master plan proposal, and that a traffic impact analysis would have to be completed as part of that application.
“I personally believe that this annexation agreement actually protects this land from what could happen if it did stay in the county,” Burden said. “By bringing it into the town, we control the development and what goes here versus leaving it up to the county. This land is going to be developed one way or another, and if it’s not by the town it’s going to be developed by the county.”
The first reading was held on Sept. 10. In that meeting, council approved the first four ordinances without conditions, but approved the development agreement and the concept plan amendment, with conditions.
Once the committee voted in favor of the annexation Tuesday, community members rose from their seats and left town chambers. Two attendees, Jim and Kathie Dillon, have lived in The Willows, a 212-home development off of Buckwalter Pkwy., for the past 19 years. The decision left the couple feeling frustrated, since they said they only received notice from the town on Oct. 24, more than a month after the first reading.
“It’s not like we have a say in the matter,” said Kathie. By the time they could make it to town council, she said, the decision was already halfway made. Other neighbors, she said, had received a letter weeks earlier.
They were also concerned about the impact that the decision could have on traffic in the area, and on the animals that currently call the land home.
Mayor Larry Toomer, said that at first, he did not understand why Bluffton should annex the property. If it is commercial property though, it does bring a service, including medical services, to residents who might otherwise be on the road going to Hilton Head or Hardeeville, he said.
“If it was just residential property in the town of Bluffton, it would be so expensive that half of us couldn’t live there, and I’m one of those. Remember, there’s much more to the book than just the first page and the last page,” he said.
What is the county’s 5B development, exactly?
Known as Bluffton Parkway Phase 5B, the project would eliminate the “dogleg” where the eastern half of Bluffton Parkways meets Buckwalter Parkway, forcing drivers to diverge from Bluffton Parkway to Buckwalter Parkway back onto Bluffton Parkway on their east west drive toward S.C. 170 or the bridges to U.S. 278.
The plan as proposed would see 5B snaking between four neighborhoods including Pinecrest and Rose Hill, then between Shell Hall and Woodbridge. Many residents of those neighborhoods are strongly against the highway build, often citing wildlife and increased traffic as their main concern. Several shared those opinions during a town council meeting on Sept. 10, when council approved the ordinances on first reading.
Nancy York, a Rose Hill resident, expressed her continued concerns during public comment at the Sept. 10 meeting, which she said had been raised by citizens “again and again and again.”
“You can continue to put additional stylish makeup on this pig, as you’ve been doing since 2011. But this is still the same pig looking to get fatter by stuffing it with special interest monies… Let’s just slaughter this pig for eternity and do what’s right for our community and its residents and vote no for 5B,” she said.
Where does Beaufort County stand?
In March, Beaufort County Council made clear during a council meeting filled with 5B opponents that they would not extend resources toward the 5B phase of the Bluffton Parkway.
“We’re going to remove the county from any use of county funds toward discussion or study of 5B,” Council Chair Joe Passiment said during a council meeting in March before any discussion on the issue.
District 7 Councilmember Logan Cunningham said Wednesday morning that the county’s position has not changed.
“In the referendum, we had no intentions of building 5B, and we still have no intentions of building 5B,” he said. The only way he would personally support 5B, he said, is if it extended all the way to Interstate 95.
Beaufort County voters rejected the proposed one-cent “penny tax” on the ballot that would have funded traffic infrastructure projects. According to Cunningham, the failure of the tax does not change the county’s standpoint on 5B, but now, there is “absolutely no funding for it.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2024 at 9:55 PM.
